Silly boy you got so much to live forSo much to aim for, so much to try forYou blow it all with, paranoiaYou’re so insecure you, self-destroyerparanoia, they destroy ya

It’s been over a week since the United incident where Dr. David Dao was forcibly removed from a flight. It takes about that long for the hysteria to die down and for some meaningful analysis to start coming out.

Yes, the airline was within its right to remove anyone for safety reasons, and perhaps for other reasons – though there’s some doubt that accommodating employees after a passenger has already been seated is in their contract of carriage. Yes, not getting those employees to the next flight could have created a travel nightmare for many more customers on a different flight. Yes, Dr. Dao could have just complied, and yes he has an interesting history. Apparently United didn’t offer up to the full amount authorized to bribe passengers to give up their seats. And, yes, the actual altercation was created by the Chicago airport police.

All of that finger-pointing and victim shaming misses the point. A point that both The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review eventually discussed a few days ago: the real problem is an extreme rules-based culture at United that makes no allowance for situational judgment.

My subconscious must have realized this earlier as I couldn’t get my favorite tune from The Kinks out of my head from the day the United story broke. A party staple from my college days, which I guess dates me a bit.

Paranoia, they destroy ya… And there you have the root cause of most rule-based organizational cultures. Paranoia.

As HBR describes, “The public reacted to the video with horror. Those flight attendants must have been appalled, too, as they watched the customer — who just a few minutes earlier was supposed to have been greeted on the plane with smiles and welcomes — being dragged, face bleeding, past other customers. What must they be thinking now? We were powerless to intervene, they might say. Civility was no longer an option. We called security. That was what management told us to do.”

Powerless, because they were controlled by rules. The depth of those rules is discussed in the WSJ article:

Like most other airlines, United follows strict rules on every aspect of handling its passengers, from how to care for unaccompanied minors to whether someone gets a whole can of Coke.

Deviating from the rules is frowned upon; employees can face termination for a foul-up, according to people familiar with the matter. At United, this has helped create a rules-based culture where its 85,000 employees are reluctant to make choices not in the “book,” according to former airline executives, current employees and people close to United.

Of course some procedures do require strict consistency and adherence to ensure safety. Some rules are necessary. But it’s important to also understand that rules can remove the ability for decisions to be made based on specific context and circumstance, and in effect assume every hole is round and can be filled by a properly-specified peg. An organizational culture driven by an overabundance of rules indicates a lack of trust in the caliber, training, and experience of employees – and a paranoia for what might happen. Yes, United is probably paranoid about the impact on the bottom line of too many people getting a whole can of Coke.

Instead, they could hire great people (perhaps they already do), provide a clear understanding of corporate objectives, draw some general guidelines, and describe the impact of potential decisions, and then set them free to make the best decisions at the right time. This is the essence of respect for people. Leveraging the value in brains instead of focusing on the hands.

Companies like United need to cultivate good judgment, and free their employees to use it.

There is no vacation policy, and the travel and expense policy is literally five words: “Act in Netflix’s best interests.” That’s it.

Netflix believes high-performance people should be free to make decisions, and those decisions need to be grounded in context. Mission, vision, and value statements do not create context. To demonstrate this, Netflix’s presentation provides the example of how Enron’s value statement included “integrity.” Real company values are shown by who gets rewarded for embodying desired behaviors and skills. The document goes on to describe the primary Netflix values and the associated behaviors.

At Netflix, flexibility is more important over the long term than efficiency.

At Gemba Academy we have adopted a very similar culture code. We have have very few policies and procedures, which helps us be very agile and customer-centric. This has been a major driver of our success.

What would have happened if United allowed – even encouraged – employees to make context-based decisions instead of being bound by paranoia-driven rules? A flight attendant might have said “there must be a better way,” offered more money, found someone else, or come up with an even more creative alternative. And United would not have lost a billion or more in market capitalization over the next few days. A quick call to arrange a Netjet private jet for Dr. Dao, albeit extreme, would have been comparably cheap. Or a Netjet for the employees they needed to get to the next flight.

HBR branches off into an interesting side note, discussing the potential impact of increasingly AI/algorithm-driven decisions. Perhaps the ultimate rules-based decision-making?

Machines follow orders. People use discretion. Learning the importance of that truism is the lesson of this awful situation, and it will be a lesson of growing relevance and application as algorithms and machines play ever larger roles in service delivery.

Something to keep in mind. In the meantime, hire great people, train them on the clear “why?” of the business, then set them free. It might keep you out of the news.

I’m currently winging my way back home after two weeks in
Thailand and Laos. Sort of a last minute
vacation for my wife and I to recenter and reconnect after a very difficult
September that ultimately resulted in the unexpected passing of my mother
in-law. I’ve been to Asia, including
Thailand, many times, but this was a first for Laos. I’m very glad we got to see the remarkable
city of Luang Prabang before it becomes overrun and changed by tourists – being
called the #1 tourist destination in the world by The New York Times can cause
that.

Technology is sometimes far more visible in Asia than in the
western world. Everyone, including tuk-tuk
drivers working for a few bucks a day, are on cell phones. Even monks, including this one in a remote Laos
village only accessible via the Mekong River.
That village happens to be known for its whiskey distillery. Yes, good people with good monks. I’ll admit I am sort of proud of the [entirely
accidental] composition of this photo.

What really strikes me with each visit to Asia, especially
the more remote areas, are the markets.
These daily markets have stalls for everything, from clothes to hardware
to raw meat. Refrigeration is obviously
overrated and perhaps even a waste.

But it’s not the market itself – that’s beautiful capitalism
in action, the value of efficiently distributing goods to where they are needed
in exchange for some profit – even in communist countries like the People’s
Supposedly Democratic Republic of Laos. It’s
that there are multiple stalls selling the exact same thing, in the exact same
part of the market, that drives the business guy in me nuts.

How does that work?
What is the differentiator that causes someone to purchase from one
stall vs. the identical one next to it… or any of the other 30 for that
matter? For local foodstuffs there’s
probably a trust and quality component.
Perhaps one stall is known for having fewer flies in the cow parts. That makes sense. I bet someone could make a mint putting a cow
parts stall next to a veggie stall so shoppers didn’t have to walk as far.

But what about at the touristy nick nack side of
things? The night markets of Luang
Prabang, Chiang Mai, or even Bangkok?
Stall after stall selling the exact same (and I mean EXACT) figurines,
silk scarves, or paintings. A 200-stall
market could truly be reduced to about five and you’d have the exact same
selection. Is a stall near the edge of the market an
advantage because it’s the first one a tourist sees? Or is one near the middle best as the tourist
is thinking “boy I’ve seen fifty of this cheesy t-shirt – maybe I should buy
one?” I don’t get it.

Of course my wife and I don’t buy that kind of crap – or any
crap for that matter – so perhaps we simply don’t understand. I know one potential differentiator is
whether or not the person in the stall is sleeping. We saw that several times, and I’m guessing
it has an impact on sales. Apparently when
selling one rinky-dink potential Christmas tree ornament can create a day’s
wages, pushing the sale isn’t a high priority.

Observing how capitalism is thriving in supposedly communist
countries is interesting. China is an
easy example, and many argue that capitalism is now more vibrant in China than in the U.S.. I thought Laos would be
different, but it’s not. Markets thrive
(even when shopkeepers are asleep) and entrepreneurial folks are setting up new
shops and services to get tourists to part with their dough.

Even in the boonies there are stories. Such as the tiny Hmong village downriver from
Luang Prabang. A collection of thatched
one-room huts with dirt floors… each with a TV.
TV? Power? The government didn’t bring
power to the outlying villages. An
entrepreneur came up with a way to pay for the infrastructure, deliver power to
people with no money but with rice to barter, and make a profit. The “people’s” government frowns but
tolerates it. Now those happy folks in one room huts get to learn about the unhappy Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in their mansions. I bet they're still happy after watching it, too.

The people of both Thailand and Laos are remarkably
knowledgeable about the political process in the U.S., and I had several
interesting conversations with waiters, tuk-tuk drivers, tour guides, and
$5/hour masseuses. Even a monk I sat
next to on a park bench while patiently waiting for the wife to closely examine
fifty shops selling the exact same thing.

As a common theme they were wondering why Americans were
allowing their government to dismantle the greatest economic engine the world has ever
seen – just as they were opening the wealth-creating floodgates in their own
economies. At the same time they were
surprised that Americans were slowing and in some cases reversing trends toward
social liberalization – again just as they were becoming more liberal
themselves by accepting, embracing, and even relishing their differences. Yes in that regard Asia is a bit different than the Mideast.

I couldn’t really argue – it’s the quandary that many of us
in the sociopolitical center experience every day. And perhaps a reason why, once again, in this
election I don’t think I can even hold my nose and vote for either major party
candidate. On one hand we have a guy so
obviously in over his head it’s mindboggling and scary what he’s doing to the global
competitive ability of U.S.. You would
have thought that the recent China threat to dump Japan’s bonds, effectively
economic warfare, would have woken us up to the perils of going more into debt
to a country like that. As an
alternative we have a guy beholden to conservative social extremes that in my
opinion cross the line into the realm of hate.
Sharia law, American style? Well, maybe an extreme. Barely. One
party wants the government involved in everything… except women’s bodies and
bedroom behavior. The other wants
government out of everything… except women’s bodies and bedroom behavior. Ridiculous hypocrisy on both sides.

Ce la vie. Maybe the
emerging economies of Asia are the place to be.
Nah… we can still work it out. I hope. Although I did take a liking to pad thai and tom yum soup. If they only had good wine…

As one of the partners in Gemba Academy, online education is something I'm a bit interested in. Of course the 230+ lean training videos we offer are more "training" than "education" – but I'll get to that topic in a bit. I'd like to think we're doing something right if over 1,000 companies are now using our products, and especially since one of those companies is none other than Toyota. Yes, really.

Columnist David Brooks penned a piece over the weekend titled "Online Education: A Tsunami is Coming." It's interesting on a couple of different levels. First the legitimacy quotient for online ed has increased dramatically in the last few years, although maybe it's just my age but I still have a hard time seeing University of Phoenix on a resume. Yes I know it's actually pretty good, and I even happen to be related to the guy that developed their doctorate programs (yes, they have them), but still.

As Brooks points out, top tier schools are getting into the market. Harvard, MIT, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford – you name it. I know USC is as well, as my wife is taking graduate level classes from that school via an incredibly slick online portal. Live classes, direct interaction, the ability to go into random groups. Pretty incredible.

So how will other lower level schools compete? On price? That's hard to do when the likes of Harvard and MIT are offering their classes for free. The kicker? If you want that little piece of paper called a diploma you have to kick in for a big chunk 'o change plus actually do some things in person. Here we go again with a question many folks in our world, especially on the six sigma side of things, wrestle with. Diplomas, certifications, a rainbow of belts. Are they worth it? What do they mean?

In the lean world, perhaps with the marginal exception of the AME/SME/Shingo version, certifications mean basically squat. There are no real standards, and even the definition of "lean" has many different flavors. I personally believe the "respect for people" aspects are far more important than the rote tools, yet how many so-called certifications measure proficiency in that area. Zip. Six sigma is considerably better, with a fairly-defined body of knowledge that is more scientific in nature, hence more measurable in its own right. And the belt requirements are also fairly standardized, although the execution and review can vary significantly. A GE black belt is worth a tad more than a black belt from the corner consultant.

If I seen a lean certification on a resume I quietly laugh and it actually reduces my opinion of their lean competence, if I see a black belt on a resume I'm more impressed – but will then allow my lean vs. six sigma bias to take over some of the questioning in an interview.

So what would happen if you saw "completed entire Harvard economics curriculum" on a resume, but not "BA, Economics, Harvard"? Ok, economics is a bad example – an econ degree from Harvard would disqualify folks in many of our books. How about "completed entire MIT chemical engineering curriculum" but not "BS, Chemical Engineering, MIT"? I'm guess you'd raise an eyebrow, and in my opinion you should.

That's the difference between "education" and "training." As Brooks points out, online ed does pretty well at step 1 of the education process – the knowledge dump. But to really learn, to have a real education, you also need to reflect on the information, think about it, apply it, scramble it, etc. A formal degree from an accredited institution does that – and since the University of Phoenix is accredited I guess I have to lump it into that category. Simply saying you've completed a curriculum doesn't.

But perhaps that's being a bit unfair, especially in the future. The top tier schools will presumably develop methods and technologies to enable real distance learning. That will turn the typical university experience on its head. The ability to think outside the traditional "degree" and "program" via the mass customization ability of the online world will be interesting. The lower tier will probably continue to be the lower end of the spectrum. And the middle? With top tier professors able to reach millions around the globe, it may become hard for middle tier schools to compete. At the same time the barrier to entry for the low end is minimal so competition for effective diploma mills – or "I completed some type of curriculum" mills – will be fierce in itself. "Completed MIT curriculum" may actually be worth more than "BA, No Name University." And it will be free.

I'm guessing at the lower tiers we'll see a bit of a convergence between "education" and "training" as "education" becomes more "knowledge dump" and "training" actually adds some minimal learning methods. A good step up for many people in many countries. And the top tier will become global exporters of both knowledge and real learning – an opportunity for several U.S. universities – and the real degree, even if online, will still have value.

So it's that time of the year again, and I'm sitting down to write a nice big check to the IRS. For the most part I'm ok with that. Writing a check means that I haven't given the government an interest free loan and it means I made some decent money last year. I don't mind paying to enjoy the benefits of living here, paying a little more because I'm a little more successful, even paying for some programs and policies I disagree with – that's a consequence, and benefit, of democracy.

But that's not my point. And, perhaps surprisingly to some, neither is the subject of tax rates themselves and the like. No, this time it's tax complexity. And usually when I talk about tax complexity I mean the 40,000 pages of regulations that are such a social engineering patchwork that it allows loopholes and abuse, not to mention bazillions of hours to comply and enforce. Not this time.

This time an article on Reuters showed me a different, and perhaps more disturbing angle of the problem.

On April 7, 2011, Peter Dunn raised his right hand before a U.S. consular officer in Toronto and swore that he understood the consequences of giving up his U.S. citizenship. Dunn, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who has lived outside the United States since 1986, says he renounced because he felt American citizenship had become more of a liability than a privilege.

Dunn, who blogs about expatriation, takes issue with being characterized as a tax evader. He says the taxes he pays in Canada are higher than what he would pay in the United States, and he says he had always complied with the IRS before renouncing. But, Dunn says, the IRS approach to enforcing compliance is misguided. "It's making life difficult for a lot of people," he says. "It's driving us away."

He's not dumping his U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes – in fact he will be paying higher taxes. He's switching because of complexity and intrusion. He's not the only one.

Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman's [long story – read the article] lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined. Many say they parted ways with America for tax reasons.

That's similar to the huge numbers of folks that are fleeing California for Nevada and Texas, or New Jersey and New York for Florida. Wealth and income shift, and tax revenues go down. Funny how that happens – across state lines and increasingly between countries and continents.

But again, in this story it's not because of high taxes, but because of complexity.

The United States is one of the only countries to tax its citizens on income earned while they're living abroad. The National Taxpayer Advocate's Office, part of the IRS, released a report in December that details the difficulties of filing taxes from overseas. It cites heavy paperwork, a lack of online filing options and a dearth of local and foreign-language resources.

And since it's not just about high taxes, those fleeing aren't just the rich.

During the last 25 years, a number of millionaires and billionaires have renounced their citizenship. Among them: Ted Arison, the late founder of Carnival Cruises, and Michael Dingman, a former Ford Motor Co. director. But those of more modest means renounce, too. They say leaving America is about more than money; it's about privacy and red tape.

What are some of the problems? Complexity, ongoing changes that create significant liability if not monitored, and intrusion.

As an American, Dunn had to file tax returns and report all of his bank accounts – even joint accounts and his Canadian retirement fund. If he didn't, he would be breaking U.S. law and could face penalties of up to $100,000 or 50 percent of his undeclared accounts, whichever is larger. Dunn says he was tired of tracking IRS policy changes. "Disclosing joint accounts I hold with my wife and anyone I ever want to do business with – that's just too much. My wife's account is none of their business."

And…

Marylouise Serrato, head of American Citizens Abroad, a nonprofit organization based in Geneva, says that many members feel scared about reporting requirements they did not know existed. "Americans abroad are terrified. We've had people pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines. We've had people … pay huge amounts of back taxes," she says.

And…

Francisca N. Mordi, vice president and senior tax counsel at the American Bankers Association, says she has received a number of calls from Americans in Europe complaining about banks closing their accounts. "They're going to drop Americans like hot potatoes," Mordi says. "The foreign banks are upset enough about the regulations that they're saying they just won't keep American customers, and it's giving (Americans living abroad) a lot of sleepless nights."

And…

In Europe, American women say they feel pressure to renounce even from their husbands. "American women married to non-Americans are only just now finding out that they have to disclose years and years of income and accounts," says Lucy Stensland Laederich, a leader of the women's club who lives in Bordeaux, France. Genette Eysselinck, a friend of Laederich's, renounced early this year. Her husband, a European Union civil servant, saw no good reason to share his account information with the IRS, she says. And after considering all her options, Eysselinck decided that renouncing was the best path. "It created a lot of tensions around here," she says. "Divorce seemed a little extreme, so I asked myself, 'What am I gaining as an American?' And the cons outweighed the pros."

How sad is that? The cons outweighed the pros, of being an American no less.

As a head of any organization, what would you think if you had customers that would pay real money to leave you because you were such a pain in the buttocks to deal with? Hopefully it would give you pause. Perhaps it should.

Don't worry folks, although the article I reference here is on regulation, my point is aimed at corporate policies and procedures as in this case they generally have the same problem. Let's see if I can tip-toe around the central theme of the article so I can make that point.

Organizational policies and procedures, and regulations, in the U.S. generally start from a perspective that every little nuance must be specified.

Government oversight of day care seems like a good idea—you wouldn't want children cooped up in an airless basement—but this proposal went far beyond basic health and safety.

The new rules would dictate exactly how to do just about everything: how many block sets ("at least two (2) … with a minimum of ten (10) blocks per set"), where the children can play with the blocks (on "a flat building surface" that is "not in the main traffic area") and when caregivers must wash their hands (before "eating food," "after wiping a child's nose," etc.).

This is the way regulation works in America: Regulators try to imagine every possible mistake and then dictate a solution. The complexity is astounding.

And we all know the behaviors that are thereby created. The folks being regulated… or "managed"… by such procedures then set out to identify the most narrow possible opening in the wall of excruciating detail, and then pry that opening apart to create a new opportunity. Then armies of lawyers… err… executives… jump into the fray to determine and litigate whether that opening was legit, and if it was, then the regulators… err… managers… then add another few thousand words to close the latest loophole.

Under a recent federal directive, the number of health-care reimbursement categories will soon increase from 18,000 to 140,000, including 21 separate categories for "spacecraft accidents" and 12 for bee stings. There are over 140 million words of binding federal statutes and regulations, and states and municipalities add several billion more.

We see it in the financial industry, we see it at a different level inside our own organizations. Take a look at your company policies and even assembly and operating procedures and work instructions. Yep, you know what I mean.

Regulation is deliberately designed to avoid human discretion—to create a regulatory code that is self-executing. By making rules as precise as possible, we hope to avoid bad judgment. The unfortunate side effect has been to preclude good judgment. Modern regulation doesn't just control undesirable practices—it indiscriminately controls all the work of regulated entities.

Taking responsibility is basically illegal in the modern regulatory state. A teacher can't maintain order in the classroom without filling out forms and facing a potential legal hearing. Judges sit on their hands, letting people sue for almost anything. An inspector feels that he has no choice but to shut down an unauthorized neighborhood lemonade stand—a rule is a rule.

As a side note, how many of you still throw new hires into a small windowless room with a five foot stack of documentation to read, and then after a day of speed reading consider the poor soul to be "trained"?

There is another way. Instead of regulations… procedures… that attempt to identify and control every option, how about results-based regulations and procedures that attempt to describe the desired outcome? Could this even be analogous to push- vs pull-based procedures?

In place of today's regulatory micromanagement, what we need is results-based regulation, with simpler rules tied to the outcomes they produce. What would such a regulatory system look like? In the first place, it would be radically simpler. Most bureaucratic detail could be scrapped, and law would become understandable again. The focus would shift from complicated rules to desired results: clean air, safe food, honest business.

Are any of you lean folks experienced in the results-based focus of TWI starting to get a twinge of understanding? Ya, me too – that's what prompted me to write this. How about a couple examples, the first from our friends across the pond that already use this method.

In Britain, financial institutions have to answer to such principles as "A firm must conduct its business with integrity" and "treat [customers] fairly." Applying those principles to Wall Street would provide ample authority for regulators to stop the next bubble without smothering credit transactions under thousands of pages of new rules.

I can already see some people getting squeamish about definitions. You've been living in a world of over-specification for too long. Change your perspective. Ok, I'll admit it shakes me a bit as well – how do you prevent abuse from the regulated as well as the regulator… the team member as well as the manager? The article continues with several suggestions along those lines, but the bottom line remains the same:

Specify what the desired result looks like, not every aspect that could contribute to the result. Then provide boundaries and specifics only on key contributors in the process – the "key points" in TWI parlance. Promote understanding of the process and result, not the creation of mindless automatons following a narrow, winding process path. Again, many similarities to TWI, which my company has found to be one the most powerful drivers of lean transformation and even a foundation for kaizen.

At the risk of creating another firestorm from the paranoid lemmings who blindly equate asking a question with being in denial, I came across another article that those of us with wider, thinking minds might consider. Thankfully on a different subject.

We hear a lot these days that those with more – or too much in the opinion of some – should "give back." Of course they are thinking purely in financial terms without understanding the larger picture. And I should add that there are many circumstances where my opinion does not align with the premise of the article. More on that later. The relation to lean and manufacturing? The dramatic improvement in productivity. Well, sort of. Maybe I'm simply interested in the subject.

Andy Kessler has a great column diving into how many people, and companies, have already given back – before they've been asked to give back more. Read it, then reconsider the so-called evil of wealth.

Wilson Greatbatch, 92, died this week a wealthy man. Investing $2,000 of his own money way back in 1958 and tending a garden to feed his family, Greatbatch invented the pacemaker. He licensed it to Medtronic, a company now valued at $36 billion that sells and continues to improve pacemakers and defibrillators. Greatbatch did his part to improve society, create wealth and increase, quite literally, our standard of living. But apparently that's not enough.

I'm directly involved in the pacemaker and overall medical device manufacturing industry, so Mr. Greatbatch creates a bit of a personal connection.

Steve Jobs gets taken to task for his lack of visible charitable giving—"no hospital wing or an academic building with his name on it," wrote the New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin recently. Never mind how much more productive and wealthy we all are because of Apple. Jeez. The old "I already gave at the office" has never rung truer.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin have saved all of us hundreds of billions of hours of research and driving around, far more value than their $20 billion each in wealth. They can give to whatever alternate energy project they want and it won't match the wealth they have already created for me and you.

Of course some would argue that those nouveau rich dudes that created Angry Birds pretty much destroyed that Google-inspired productivity gain. I'm convinced that game is a drug, which is why I went cold turkey and took it off the iPad.

Yes these guys are ridiculously wealthy. Far more than they could ever spend. Sure flyng around on private 767s looks a bit austentatious. But look what they gave us. Shouldn't that be rewarded?

I'm all for charity. I give, but those who collect it and spend it need to appreciate both where the money comes from in the first place and that they can never match the power of free enterprise to improve lives. Never.

Sorry, but the egg comes first. The welfare state doesn't exist without productive businesses and workers to pay for it. Yes, we need bridge builders, park rangers and even a few postal workers, but our economic policies need to encourage wealth-creating productive industries, not crush them with the burden of an unproductive state.

Bingo. I know several very wealthy people. They put everything on the line, sometimes multiple times intersperced with incredible failures, to create their wealth. They gave up decades of even comfortable living to take a wild chance on creating something new. That's why I don't begrudge them their wealth in the slightest. Instead I admire their perseverance and guts.

This is also where I beg to differ a bit from the article. There are those that created incredible products that have enriched our lives… and thereby driven more dollars into the tax coffers to spend on programs that enrich lives in different ways. But perhaps along the lines of the creators of Angry Birds, although that's a bit unfair, there are those that have become enriched without creating. The offspring of wealth-creators who simply rest on their wealth without creating. The CEOs that destroy rather than build… sometimes over and over again… and still get hefty severance packages. Those financial middlemen who siphon off capital in exchange for… I'm not sure what. We could come up with a decent list of those less scrupulous types.

Two groups. One deserves the wealth, the other, quite frankly, doesn't. One adds value, the other simply sucks potential value-creating capital out of society.

So how do we change the discussion from "give back more… and more…" to "let's reward improvement and creation"? Wealth itself is not evil – but it can be.

Just as we chastise those that simply live off of entitlements and handouts, we should find fault with those that don't leverage capital resources for social good. And just as we should applaud and reward success with worthy endeavors instead of asking them to "give back more," we should support and promote those at the other end of the wealth spectrum that are trying to improve themselves and others in their own way.

It's not as simple as just saying "give back more" or "we've given enough."